Danish TV's wonderfully poetic and evocative Tour de France advert will get you very excited

If you’re still not feeling Tour de France excitement, the great people of Danish TV are on hand to change that.

With football’s Euro 2020 tournament hogging sports coverage and social media conversation, it’s almost forgotten that the Tour starts in less than two weeks on June 26.

Three weeks of stage watching (this year, most probably only from the sofa and not on the roadside) is upon us and that evokes so many summery cycling memories.

As part of their build-up to their Tour coverage, Danish channel TV2 have released a magnificent one minute advert that perfectly encapsulates everything that is great and wonderful about the Tour.

Because, whether we admit it or not, most of u have been there: we’ve watched the pros , been inspired them and then gone out and tried to emulate them. And that’s what the advert is about.

Beginning with the actual definition of a MAMIL, the actor shaves his legs, straps on his bib tights and walks sheepishly past his family eating breakfast, not so-discreetly silently screaming: “Look at me!”

The actor then roars as he climbs up a residential street, a literal world way from the challenges of the Alps and Pyrenees, but the same metaphorical intensity.

Struggling to clip into his pedals at the traffic light, the cyclist then takes a look at the other side of the road where he sees a larger cyclist soaking himself in cold water, before the advert finishes with an impromptu peloton climbing together.

It’s magical, it’s poetic and it’s got us excited for three weeks of binge watching the greatest bike race of the lot.